How Can I Not?
by Splitbeak
Summary: Teyla was surprised at how far Sheppard was willing to go to save Ronon on Sateda. She really shouldn't have been.


_Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate Atlantis_

**How Can I Not?**

When Mitch and Dex had died, I'd thought I'd died with them. Their bodies were left to rot in the scorching deserts of Afghanistan while mine was shipped to freeze in Antarctica. I was as cold as the ice that surrounded me everywhere, and frigid as the wind that pushed me every which way.

Half the year I was blinded by the sun, and the other half I could never see anything. I didn't talk to anybody or hang out in public at all really. What was the point? I was dead.

Then one day a spaceship was headed right for us and I found myself in my jet acting out the part of some unlucky jerk from Independence Day. Jets were going down left and right around me.

_This was it, _I was so sure I would finally be dead for real.

Somehow I survived that fight, and I felt it just one more disappointment. Death was too good for a disgraced major.

None of our commanding officers would tell us anything about the spaceship we fought, and that was okay with me. I didn't really care. As long as the cold was wrapped around me, I was good.

A lot of people started coming to Antarctica after that. I transported most of them to the base myself. They were a very professional bunch, but there was this one arrogant shmuck who just wouldn't shut up about how great he was. I almost killed Rodney within five minutes of meeting him.

On my last run, Carson sent a drone after me. I dodged it automatically. Who knew survival was instinctual? Huh. After that incident, I found myself wanted once more. Well not me, my genes. I guess that was better than being the pariah I usually was.

They wanted to take me away from the cold and the numbness that came with it. Well, Dr. Weir did anyway. Colonel Sumner wasn't so happy with me. But that was okay. It was normal.

But things spiraled way too quickly out of control afterwards. I shot my commanding officer. I single-handedly woke up a deadly enemy. I suddenly found myself in a position of command once more, with a leader who actually seemed like a decent human being who for some reason trusted me.

I even got a team out of it somehow. McKay, Teyla, Ford… they really had my back. Something inside me thawed, the hollow core left by the death of my friends in Afghanistan didn't hurt so much. Not that I didn't still miss Mitch and Dex, but somehow, I felt it was okay to live again.

Plus, the really cool jumpers helped. They were a pilot's wet dream. Couldn't hurt to feel the G's occasionally though.

Then I failed Ford, and he was lost. I'd blown it again.

I tried to save him, but by the time I got to him, he didn't want to be saved.

I spent more time by myself after that. I felt guilty about Ford, but I also felt like I deserved it for forgetting about Mitch and Dex. My father was right. I was a screw up. Everyone knew it. All my commanding officers in the past had seen it right away. Even Everett had known.

But then after fighting the Wraith just once, he'd changed his mind. The man actually wished I'd been there to _shoot_ him.

Ronon took Ford's place on my team after I'd pushed him to do so. It was the right thing to do, but every time I turned to check my six and saw him standing there instead of Ford, I felt the cold creeping over me again.

But slowly things changed. Ford continued to make a nuisance of himself, and after he kidnapped my team with his harebrain scheme to blow up a hive-ship, I was finally able to let go of my image of him as my teammate. Ronon had filled his shoes with a level of unspoken brotherhood that rocked me to my core.

Every time I needed help, be it from hostile convicts, alien bugs and mutating into one of them, to escaping volcanoes in Ancient spaceships, one of them was there for me. I admit I hit a low point when I was trapped in the time dilation field, but Teer let me know I wasn't alone, and they did come through for me eventually.

I felt like I was reborn, given a second chance to make things right.

When I joined Teyla for a visit to the mainland, I caught myself smiling for real at Jinto's antics. When I sparred with her or Ronon, it wasn't survival, and I didn't feel like I had to prove anything. It felt good to release the energy and enjoy a meal in the mess hall afterwards. It was strange to leave a room with my mouth hurting not from a punch, but from smiling too much.

McKay was always badgering me to help him out in his labs and activate stuff. At first it hurt, knowing he only thought of me as a lab rat. Or it did until I realized that half the stuff he had me activate he could have easily activated himself. Even scientists can get lonely. Maybe we're both freaks. Anyone who heard a quarter of our conversations would lock us up in the loony bin. But it was fun to be able to unleash my wit without consequences, and even to have it thrown back at me.

I hadn't meant to tell Rodney, or anyone really, about MENSA. It wasn't even in my file. Yet I found myself casually letting it slip out on Dagan. I worried later that McKay would think differently about me. I had misled him, and hid my I.Q. from him time and time again. Yet for all his pettiness, he let it slide for the most part. It was just one more piece of John Sheppard, and he wasn't rejected.

The cold became a distant memory.

When Teyla came to find me in the cafeteria on the way to Sateda I tried to explain to her why she and Ronon meant so much to me. I wanted to tell her how much I cared, how they'd all brought me back to life, and let me know it was okay to live again. The words were caught in my throat though, and only halting sentences came through that were half-filled in by Teyla anyway.

I was ashamed of my inability to tell her how much they all meant to me, but I think she got an idea. I just don't think she understood the intensity of my feelings.

Before them, I was already dead. To die _for _them now would be an honor.

No one was going to take my team from me. They'd taken me too far from cold, and now whoever stood in my way of getting Ronon back would have to face the fires of my rage. Cliché, but true.

I don't know what I would have done if Ronon had died on Sateda. But I knew I'd be okay once I knew he wasn't going to shoot me. I know all is right again when everything becomes a joke again, and everyone (including me) is in on it.

It took me thirty-eight years, but I finally found where I belong. And it's great.


End file.
